China to open new section fabled Great Wall

By
Reuters /
September 23, 1985

Peking

Another section of China's ancient Great Wall north of Peking will be opened on Oct. 1, providing a new destination for tourists. The authorities have renovated a one-mile-long stretch at Mutianyu, in the hills northeast of the Chinese capital.

The wall, snaking through the mountains of north China, was started more than 2,000 years ago and is a monument to China's traditional fear of barbarians to the north.

The first thing that strikes the eye about the new part of the wall is that it is free of the graffiti covering the wall at Badaling, where thousands of visitors have succumbed to the urge to engrave their names in the 500-year-old stonework.